Blackbirds dropping out of the sky in Arkansas. Fish floating belly up on Chesapeake Bay. Are these really signs of the "aflockalypse"?
We should take notice when animals die off in large numbers, but the recent "mysterious" occurrences aren't the ones that should be getting us most concerned. Even well-known Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson has said that the recent phenomena are more about modern communications technology than mysteries of nature.
"This instant and global communication, it's just a human instinct to read mystery and portents of dangers and wondrous things in events that are unusual," Dr. Wilson told The Associated Press. "Not to worry, these are not portents that the world is about to come to an end."
The Associated Press article also mentioned that Dr. Wilson was somewhat concerned about the amount of attention these die-offs are getting "while a larger but slower mass extinction of thousands of species because of human activity is ignored."
He's correct. These mass die-offs are not as infrequent as we might think. In the U.S., at least 160 such events are reported every year. The causes can include sudden changes in weather, disease, and environmental stress brought about by climate change — and it appears, maybe even fireworks.
But as Dr. Wilson points out, greater extinctions are looming, and they are what should really concern us, as we can do something about them.
For example, the David Suzuki Foundation recently released a study of government records showing that nearly half of all known wildlife in British Columbia is threatened or endangered, including well-known creatures such as grizzly bears, caribou, and orca whales. Despite this biodiversity crisis, B.C. has no endangered species law to protect its wildlife or habitat from mining, logging, or urban sprawl.
Canada has a federal endangered species law, but the government is dragging its feet on implementing it. As a consequence, some wildlife populations, like the northern spotted owl in B.C., have declined by over 90 per cent.
The unsettling events of recent weeks reveal that many wildlife populations are vulnerable to sudden and dramatic losses in numbers, sometimes due to natural causes. But let's not make a bad problem worse.
We need to reduce the environmental stressors that we, as humans, impose upon wildlife so that they can better cope and survive the challenges they face every day. We need to eliminate toxins such as dangerous pesticides, protect the habitat of endangered plants and animals like grizzly bears, and get serious about tackling climate change — which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, could put 20 to 30 per cent of all plant and animal species assessed at increased risk of extinction as global average temperatures exceed a warming of 2º C to 3º C above pre-industrial levels.
It's good that people are concerned about the recent die-offs in the news, but we really need to start paying more attention to our role in the greater die-offs of plants and animals around the world.